At least 11 die in Israel bus bombing

At least 11 people were killed and around 30 injured yesterday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a bus in the northern Israeli town of Haifa, Israeli police said.

Public television said most of the victims were students as the bus travelled between a residential area on the Carmel heights and Haifa university.

It was the first bomb attack inside Israel since January 5, when two Palestinian suicide bombers blew themselves up in central Tel Aviv, killing 23 other people.

Northern police chief Yaacob Borowsky told Israeli public radio the blast was the work of a suicide bomber.

''The explosion occurred inside the bus, and was very powerful. There's almost nothing left of the bus,'' Gershon Zoberman, a fire brigade officer said. ");document.write("

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''The scenes are horrific here, twisted metal, it is very difficult to look at,'' an eye-witness added.

''The centre of the bus lifted up into the air, the roof was torn off. It looked like a blast inside the bus, and within seconds people began taking the wounded out of the bus,'' another witness told a local TV network.

Police and ambulance services rushed to the scene as the area was cordoned off by security forces in case there were further explosives in the area.

Doron Keller of the Magen David Adom ambulance service said there were ''dozens of casualties,'' as the bomb went off in the bus going through Haifa, which has been hit by several suicide bombings on buses in the past.

Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner called the deadly blast a ''very grave attack'' and said Israel would take ''vigorous action against the terrorist organisations.''

He said Israeli intelligence had been dealing with at least 40 tip-offs of impending attacks when the Haifa bus was blown up.